Mariah Carey’s reign during Christmas in the United States has been undisputed for many years now. In fact, ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ has become the Christmas carol par excellence. There is no one who can go without listening to that song in December (lately even in November). However, this 2023 he has a throne companion: Brenda Lee with ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’.
65 years after its release, ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ has finally reached number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. He did it in the first week of December, thus being the first Christmas carol of the year to top the charts in the North American country. The feat also marked Brenda Lee’s third number 1 and her first since 1960.
«I like that God has given me the favor of being able to stand back, look and know that it wasn’t just me; “which is a conglomerate of many people who made the song what it is,” Brenda Lee told Billboard after the reveal of the top 1. The party lasted until a second week, when Lee, who is now 79 years old, managed to extend a week more her mark as the oldest artist to have topped the Hot 100.
Last year at that time, Mariah Carey was already number 1 on the US chart with ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’. Although she had to wait until mid-December to achieve another week at number 1, the artist has managed to accumulate her fourteenth week at the top during this Christmas, two of them being part of 2023. Her success, despite the fact that it is already unstoppable and huge, it started in 2019 with the first top 1 of the song. Since then, it has been at the top that year (for three weeks), in 2020 (two weeks), in 2021 (three weeks), in 2022 (four weeks), and in 2023 (two weeks to date).
With the same number of days at number 1 in the United States, Brenda Lee and Mariah Carey have been the voice of this Christmas. Although Carey’s impact is more global than Lee’s, both have also dominated worldwide: ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ garnered 23.7 million streams on Spotify on Christmas Eve, the day with greater consumption than Christmas on streaming platforms. , while ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ earned 18.9 million views. Will they repeat their success together in 2024?
